By Vincent Khonje
With the tobacco industry facing challenges globally, smallholder farmers can find solace in alternative crops thanks to Pyxus Agriculture Malawi (PAM).
After 145 years working in the tobacco industry, Alliance One Tobacco announced its transformation into a company called PAM whose objective is to identify alternative crops that farmers can grow on a sustainable manner to help them generate additional income.
During an open day on Wednesday where PAM partners visited the company’s two farms of Lisandwa in Kasungu and Mpale at Madisi in Dowa, PAM Managing Director, Ron Ngwira said they decided to bring partners, stakeholders and financiers to the field to appreciate the journey the company has embarked on as it goes along with smallholder farmers.
“PAM is a new player hoping to engage existing farmers and using existing financial institutions who have been previously working with them in tobacco farming, and help them to diversify and grow alternative crops,
“More importantly, we just don’t want to be a commodity trader but to add value as we intend to sell the final product,” said Ngwira.
The company is currently into crops like beans, soybean, groundnuts and sunflower and other businesses like forestry, biomass and it intends to go into industrial hemp depending on Malawi’s legislation atmosphere as time goes.
PAM Value-Added Agriculture Products Division Executive Vice President, Jose Maria Costa, said the company is focusing on unregulated crops and markets and creating something similar to Integrated Product System (IPS) in tobacco.
“The mission is to utilise our agricultural expertise to strengthen our relationships with contracted farmers and continue pursuing production of high quality agricultural products to provide to our customers,” said Costa.
Director of Strategic Partnership for Feed the Future, which is working in agriculture diversification, Jeremy Venable said PAM’s every initiative is intended to increase income and productivity, and improve farmers’ livelihoods.
“What they are showing is that with the same expertise and resources used in tobacco industry, you can also make big improvements in other crops.
“Hopefully, there will be huge impact both at smallholder farmer level and macroeconomic level,” said Venable.
PAM with its partners want to ensure there is seed multiplication in beans, sunflower and groundnuts, and some trials for soybean aimed at having best varieties that are being demanded on the market which can be released to farmers to grow.-MANA